Another Dry Start To The Year

By garylezak, on January 16th, 2013

Good morning bloggers,

Welcome to our boring weather pattern. The Drought in the Heartland developed and expanded last spring and has continued through the winter months. January is supposed to be the driest month of the year, but does it have to be this dry:

There is not one drop of rain or one flake of snow showing up on the computer models right now. According to the LRC, we will be having a few good chances of some snow and rain in February, but overall we are in another dry weather pattern.

A warming trend has started. It was 18° last night when I was on the air at 10 PM, and it warmed to 23° by 6 AM. The warm up will peak Friday into early Saturday as a strong cold front approaches. A dry strong cold front. Before that cold front moves through we should easily warm up into the 50s Friday into Saturday:

Have a great day. We will will be in search of rain and snow on 41 Action News today and tonight.

22 comments to Another Dry Start To The Year

I see the highs for early next week are already going up on the 7-day , good! No surprise, a warm up followed by 2-3 day shot of below average temperatures followed by another warm up and no moisture! Haven’t we seen this before?

I think we have to remember that the weather in Canada doesn’t necessarily have any impact on our area. Last winter it was the coldest winter ever in Alaska, but the one of the warmest ever here. It was kept bottled up there. It will probably be the same way this year with the air in northern Canada. I see the lows are already adjusted to 10 or higher now.

We all know that eventually this drought will end, however my question is, what type of setup, events or weather anomalies is it going to take to get these troughs moved where KC is in a more favorable precip setup? As I’m sure these are things in the bigger picture your looking for.

We will need the pattern to become weaker, and then in the April, May, June versions of this cycling pattern. The pattern we had this past week could be wet in a slower/slightly weaker, more Gulf of Mexico influenced version. If that makes any sense?

This January is dry, but last January was drier. Only 0.06″ fell for all of January 2012 at KCI. Last winter into spring we had above average precip in December, February, and March. This time around, January is looking like our 10th consecutive month with below average precipitation.

I don’t see anything that would indicate going very “arctic” here. The cold pool of air by Hudson Bay will move a bit SE into parts of the NE U.S., but it’s effects will not even drop us into the single digits here at night. That’s barely below average. I’ve said this before, but it’s very difficult – nearly impossible – for us to get below zero lows without snow cover.

The AO would need to go quite negative at the same time the pool of air in Canada (Hudson Bay) is at it’s coldest. I don’t see that (at least out past February 5th) happening. The current pool is moderating over the next 7-10 days and there’s nothing showing up west or north of Ontario (it would need to get cold there to up our chances of any arctic outbreak here). Also, there isn’t a lot of snow cover to speak of in the CONUS, except in the mountains.

Add in the dry pattern and it sure looks to me like winter is done for.

I don’t see the same things in February that you do Gary. What 2-4 chances of snow are you seeing?

Anyone looked at the the midpoint in the LRC cycle to determine if there have been any occurrences of smaller systems moving throu around the halfway point that could affect the end of the LRC cycle? If I did my calculations correctly the 24-26 of January is around the halfway point of the next 55 day cycle. I have looked back as far as I have the database for and around the halfway point of each 55 day cycle there was either a storm system in the south or one coming in off the pacific. I would predict a precipitation event around the 24-26 January that will be minor. Just an uneducated looking a statistics interpolated opinion.

There will likely be that system you are talking about around the 25th. In the last cycle it went north of us. The more active part of the pattern is due in as we move into February. Anyway you look at it, it will still be a struggle to get precipitation. And, I think the cycle is somewhere between 50 and 55 days.

Thanks Gary. I am pretty interested in the cyclical nature of your theory. I believe patterns exist but even more interesting is studying the variables around the timeframe that shape the outcome of the event during the cycle. The halfway point is a good point to see how the cycle inevitably produces or doesn’t produce at the end point. The mean of a cycle being the 25 day point can point to that outcome at the end. I am not sure which variable may affect the outcome but it could be a wide range that inevitably changes the end of the cycle and how it affects the KC area. Anyway it is very intriguing to me and looking forward to watching the cycle as it unfolds.

My family is in the Charlotte area and I was there at Christmas in 2010 when we got 4″ of snow. It was my first white Christmas and my girls as well. Snow in the south sends people scurrying in all directions. Good luck, hope you guys get some good white stuff